My six-year-old son, Will, had been very excited about his new Lego minifigure that he named Max. One day, when I picked him up from school, his aide told me that Will had been playing with Max and calling him “auto-tistic.” Even with his adorable mispronunciation, we could guess that Will was trying to say “autistic.”

I’ve talked to Will about autism, but I’ve never been sure how much he understands. He knows he is autistic and he has heard me mention other autistic people as well. But I had never heard him talk about anyone being autistic before. This was something new.